


The Lost Hero

by KatLeePT



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatLeePT/pseuds/KatLeePT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It shouldn't have come to this, but it did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lost Hero

It's not fair, he thinks as the world cheers around him. They're cheering for him, but all he wants them to do is to shut up. For one rare second, Clark Kent actually considers turning his powers on the populace just so he will not have to hear their cheers any more. This isn't a time to celebrate. It's a time to grieve, and his heart breaks even more as he pulls a body from the rubble.  
  
He didn't mean for this to happen. He didn't mean for any of this to happen, and although Lex would have sworn that everything was his plan had he lived, he knew better. Things had gotten out of hand, far, far too out o hand, and now they could never come back. He could never make things right.  
  
He'd give anything to go back to a better time, back to a time when he believed he could still save Lex, back to a time when he actually could have still saved Lex. It seems almost impossible now that the young man who had once made him smile, laugh, and love so easily is the same one now laying cold and dead in his arms. Tears spill down Clark's cheeks as he holds him close.  
  
He feels some one approaching and lifts his head and glowers at them, flames sparking in his blue eyes turned red. "Easy, fella," Flash speaks. "It's just us."  
  
They are his friends, but they can't understand what he's feeling now. None of them can. They all ever saw Lex as the enemy. They didn't know him like he did. They had never been his friend, never known that young man who Clark had truly once thought would be changed by Smallville. They didn't know he had never wanted to end up like his father.  
  
But his father's still alive, Clark thinks, crying silently and lowering his head back down as he hears Batman whisper to the others to give him some room. Lex is nothing like his father regardless. Not only is he no longer alive, but he did at least try to live his life differently from all the Luthors before him. Clark hears his voice in his head now, telling him that he won't succeed, warning him that he, too, like all those who came before him, will fall to the wickedness that runs in the Luthor bloodline, pleading him, on more than one night, to put an end to him before he could hurt some one.  
  
He was never able to do it, but now, it's been done. Lex won't walk away from this fight. He'll never be able to rise again, to smile or laugh, to make Clark laugh. His hand runs over his dull, blue eyes that once held such life, closing them forever. He'll never look into those beautiful eyes of his again.  
  
He'll never again have a chance to tell him they're beautiful, that he's beautiful, that he loves him. He should have said the words while he could. He should have stopped all pretenses and been honest. After all, hadn't that been one of the many things Lex had once told him he admired about him so greatly? He was innocent, honest, good, and pure, all things Lex had warned him many times before that he was not and could never be.  
  
Lex might have been different from him, but he had been more of a driving force behind Clark than the hero had ever admitted to any one, even himself. He had inspired him to do better in his life, to go further, to try harder. He had never tried as hard at anything as he had to winning Lex over to the right side, to helping him lay all his Demons to rest. Now, at last, his Demons were at rest. They would never bother him again. Nothing would ever hurt Lex again.  
  
Clark, on the other hand, was still very much alive, and he'd never hurt more than he was hurting right now. He was no stranger to loss. He'd lost many friends over the years. He'd lost his father when he still felt he should have been able to save him. He'd almost lost himself many times, but Lex had somehow always found the right words to guide him to come back together again.  
  
Even when they had been fighting on a grander scale, when the whole planet had been at risk, Lex had still guided Clark. He had given him an enemy to fight. He had shown him the truths in the world. He'd told him once that a hero was only as great as his most powerful nemesis, but Clark had never wanted Lex to be his enemy.  
  
And he hadn't been, not really. Lex's mind had been twisted, but the man who had taken the reins of LuthorCorp after his father had disappeared had long ago ceased being Lex. Still, for years, he had been driven by Lex's secret desire to improve the world. Sadly, he'd always believed he could only save it by controlling it, and neither Clark nor the other JLAers could allow that to happen.  
  
He hears his team behind him now, murmuring apologies, telling the law officers to give him time, and asking the press to leave them alone. There's a flurry of pictures (no reporter ever leaves them alone without one), but finally, and only after Batman promises them all a private interview later, they leave. One by one, his team drifts away while the cops remain, waiting to gather the body and clean up the area. "Superman?" he hears Batman call him, but he looks away.  
  
"Very well." He knows when the last one leaves. The cops and other public officials will return. The press will, too, but for right now, he's alone. He's alone with his best friend, the only man he's ever truly loved. He's tried to love Lois. He's tried to be the good man that the world expects of him, but the truth is he's no more capable of being the man they want than Lex was.  
  
He cradles his body to him as he stands. Lex doesn't deserve to have people who don't care about him make his final resting plans. He doesn't deserve to have them rip apart what is left of his fortune, worldly belongings, and most of all, his name. He didn't deserve to die like this. Clark had asked him to leave, had begged him to even, but then, suddenly, it had been too late. They hadn't meant for the diverted bomb to hit his building, and even he hadn't been able to fly fast enough to reach him in time when they'd learned what was happening.  
  
He hangs his head in shame, tears still running non-stop down his face. Lex had once told him he was brave and that he hoped to one day be able to be as brave as he was, but Clark knows the truth. He was never really all that brave. He'd been scared even just to face Lex with no guards or superheroes between them. He'd been scared to face him and the truth between them. If he had, maybe things would have been different. Maybe Lex could have continued being Lex instead of the Luthor the world expected of him.  
  
Maybe he could have even loved him back. Perhaps that love could have been enough to guide Lex away from trying to conquer the world and to help him Clark instead to save it and the millions of innocents his armies and weaponry put at risk. But now, they'll never know. He'll never be able to tell him.  
  
He remembers how they had first met as he takes to the air. He recalls the way Lex had made him feel, like he could do anything, anything but tell him the truth. He remembers how great it felt having a friend so strong and wise believing in him. Chloe's belief had helped him. His parents' beliefs had always guided him. But it had been Lex's belief in him which had given Clark the true strength to rise above his country boy background and desire to stay hidden from the world and actually go out and save it many times over.  
  
He had saved so many lives. Thousands and thousands of people owed their survival to him. Not a one of them matters to him now, though, and he'd give them all back to whence they'd come from and where they had been going if he could only have Lex open his eyes one last time and tell him he loved him. Clark likes to believe he did and that was why Lex had never succeeded in killing him, and why he had kept his secret all these many years. He'd seen it in many times in his eyes, though they'd never spoken of their real feelings for one another. Now he'll never see those eyes smile at him again or love him from afar.  
  
With one arm, he's been cradling Lex's still body while digging a hole with his other hand, but now he scoops, holding Lex in both arms one last time. He hugs him to him, though his body is cold, hard, and stiff. He kisses the top of his smooth head and lowers him into the ground before the barn where they shared one kiss that never happened again.  
  
He has to force himself to cover Lex, force every handful of dirt he drops back onto him. He knows this is wrong, it's against the law, but he doesn't care. The law never understood them, and it never will. If others know where Lex is buried, his body will never receive any peace, but Clark hopes with all that remains in his heart that Lex now at last has that peace.  
  
He hopes, too, that he'll get to see him again, even if that means he ends up in Hell, and if he does ever see him, if he ever against the chance to hold him again, he will, and he'll kiss him and tell him how much he loves him and thank him, at last, for being his guiding, silent hero. He'd always come to Lex when he'd known not where else to go. When he finishes burying him, he lays down next to the grave, his hand on the dirt beside it, and closes his eyes while continuing to weep. All he wants now is a chance to go be with him again and love him forever more.  
  
The End

 

**Author's Note:**

> All characters within belong to DC Comics, not the author, and are used without permission.


End file.
